329 Quotes by Fredrik Backman

You're not scared. You're just grieving. No one tells you humans that your sorrow feels like fear.

Anita is small and colourless in her grey trousers, grey knitted cardigan, grey hair and grey skin. But ove notices that her face is slightly red-eyed and swollen. Quickly she wipes her eyes and blinks away the pain. As women of that generation do. As if they stood in the doorway every morning, determinedly driving sorrow out of the house with a broom.

Ana was a tornado. A jagged, hundred-sided peg in a community where everyone was supposed to fit into round holes.

Mum is a perfectionist and Dad is a pedant and that was partly why their marriage didn't work so well, Elsa figures. Because a perfectionist and a pedant are two very different things.

It's hard for a parent to accept that you can't protect your child from everything.""It's hard for a child to accept it too," says Elsa, and pats him on the cheek.

All marriages have their bad sides, because people have weaknesses. If you live with another human being you learn to handle these weaknesses in a variety of ways. For instance, you might take the view that weaknesses are a bit like heavy pieces of furniture, and based on this you must learn to clean around them. To maintain the illusion.

...a poco a poco altri bambini diversi iniziano a fare compagnia a Elsa e Alex, finchè sono così in tanti...finchè diventano un esercito. Perchè se sono in tanti a essere diversi, allora nessuno è normale

It takes years to know a human being. An entire lifetime. It's what makes a home a home.

Children need the lie to be brave enough to sleep in their beds; parents need it to be able to get up the next morning.